


like the border between greece and albania

by irishmizzy



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishmizzy/pseuds/irishmizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That time Robin and Barney had an affair that no one ever knew about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like the border between greece and albania

**Author's Note:**

> AU Season 3 through "Dowisetrepla."

He's the first person she tells about dumping Gael.

"Welcome home, Scherbatsky." He raises his glass in a toast.

"Thanks," she says. She smiles gratefully when he buys the next round. And the next one. And the next.

"Tonight we are celebrating your return to awesome. Your homecoming. Your rebirth. Your Independence Day."

"Barney."

"Sorry - your Canada Day."

She should have just waited for Lily to have a free night and then told her about dumping Gael. But no, instead she's here letting Barney make up holidays and interpret her sex dreams.

"Cheers, Barney," she says, interrupting whatever he's saying about her monumental break-up to clink her glass against his. This time she slams the glass down on the table when she finishes; there's something incredibly satisfying about the kerchunk of glass meeting lacquered wood.

She laughs out loud, happily accepts the new, full glass Barney's already pressing into her hand.

"To me!" She taps her glass against his hard enough to slosh liquor all over her fingers. Clearly it's going to be that kind of night.

**

"And then you hold onto the bar like this and kind of – yeah, I can't explain it. You just have to be there," she says, dropping her hands into her lap. It's just really hard to explain when you're sitting in a bar. Maybe if she had a windsurf board she could demonstrate. She wrinkles her nose and tries to remember how it all worked, but her fingers are sticky and starting to feel like they're not really connected to her hands and she gets distracted.

"I think I'm drunk." She slumps in her seat, kicks her legs straight out in front of her so her feet rest on the bench next to Barney. With one hand she lifts her hair off her neck so that when she leans her head back her hair is mashed against the vinyl and she doesn't feel like she's going to sweat to death anymore.

"Yeah, you are." He's playing with his tie, flipping it up and then smoothing it down against his stomach. There are two half-empty tumblers on the table between them, but most of the evidence of their night has already been cleared away.

"You're drunk, too."

"Yes," he flattens his tie and looks squarely at her. His face is flushed and she figures that he's probably as hot as she is. Hotter, probably, because he's wearing a whole suit. "Yes, I am."

She claps when she laughs and her fingers tingle so she knows they're still there, attached to her hands, to her arms, not dream hands like Vacation Robin's. Barney laughs at her, or maybe with her, or maybe at something else entirely. Whatever it is, he's laughing and she's laughing and she has no idea what was so funny in the first place.

"I have to pee," she says, not laughing any more. He waves her away and she concentrates, concentrates, concentrates on walking to the bathroom.

She leans against the sink while she washes her hands. _Oh my God_, she thinks, slowly blinking at her reflection, _I am so drunk_. This is drunker than she's been in, God she can't even remember how long it's been because she is an adult now and she has bills to pay and work to show up at and good Lord she is drunk. Drunk drunk drunk, and it's all Barney's fault.

If her life were a movie, this is where the screen would fade to black.

Her life is never a movie when she needs it to be, though, so Robin dries her hands and walks back to the table silently reciting _I am drunk, drunk I am_ and trying to think of a line that rhymes with "an asshat named Barney."

She's still thinking when she slides back into the booth where Barney's waiting with his half-empty glass. She rests her forearms on the table and sighs.

"And here I thought you'd be hitting on some random girl by now."

"Please, Scherbatsky, did you forget the part where we decided it was your homecoming? You cannot abandon the guest of honor at her own party."

Robin smiles. That was sweet – maybe her poem is a little too harsh.

"And anyway, that redhead at the bar gave me her number while you were in the bathroom."

"Of course," Robin exhales.

There's a moment of quiet where the hum of the blood and alcohol running through her veins drowns out the chatter and the jukebox. She rests her chin in her hands and listens to a guy at the bar sing about blessing the rain down in Africa.

"Okay, time to go, Drunken Sparkles." She jumps when Barney kicks her in the ankle. He finishes his drink and is standing before she even has her purse over her shoulder. He's not steady on his feet though, and he has to grab the back of the booth for balance.

"You're drunk, too," she laughs, pointing at him.

He doesn't say anything, just stares at her and concentrates on standing upright. Or he's looking down her shirt, which is infinitely more likely.

"Barney!"

"What? Come on, let's go." He ignores her frown and takes her arm to lead her outside.

"You don't have to leave, you know."

"I'm just supposed to let you leave like this? That's how people end up in the circus, Robin."

"I'm pretty sure that's not true."

"How else do you explain the girls on the flying trapeze?" He raises his arm to flag down a cab.

She crosses her arms over her chest and bounces on the balls of her feet, waiting. It's colder out here than it was in the bar and now she's really curious as to where trapezers – trapezists – people on the flying trapeze come from. Is that a career you can actually choose? Do they have to get special degrees? Interesting.

He holds the door open for her while she gives the driver her address. It's only when the car pulls away from the curb that she notices Barney's in the cab with her, his arm stretched along the back of the seat, his body taking up so much of the space.

"What are you doing here?"

"The Big Apple Circus is in town, do you really want to risk life in a sequined leotard?"

"Oh my God, that is not what happens."

"That's what they want you to think." She ignores him and curls into the door, watches the lights blur outside the window until it makes her brain swirl and she has to shut her eyes.

She opens them again somewhere on the bridge. Barney's watching her, not in a creepy way – probably more in a "I hope you're still breathing over there" kind of way, if anything. Instinctively she tugs the collar of her shirt up.

"I think I'd be good in the circus," she says. "I look good in sparkly."

"Pretty sure sparkly isn't a color."

"I still look good in it. I look good in a lot of things. Even beaded braids, kind of."

"I think the being topless was what helped the braids," he says seriously, and when she chuckles his hand moves from where it's resting on the back of the seat to the nape of her neck. It's warm and solid and reminds her of picking up puppies by the scruff of their necks.

"Shut up." She scoots closer so she can elbow him in the ribs and then she laughs some more. His hand is still heavy on her neck, their hips are pressed together, knees bumping the grey, deteriorating back of the front seat. It's like there isn't enough space in the backseat for them.

She tells him that – closes her eyes and says, "There isn't enough room for us here."

"Then move back to your side, Scherbatsky."

"No, not like that, it's like we're too much for it. Like it can't, I don't know, like it can't contain our awesome."

"Yeeeees," he says, and he draws it out for so long she can tell without looking at him that he's nodding furiously. "Yes, Robin. Philosophical high five!"

She opens one eye just enough to make sure he wants her to actually high five him, instead of like thinking really hard about high fiving him or something. The smack of their hands resonates and the cabbie jumps and glares at them in the rearview mirror. Robin's pretty sure he's muttering something about them in his native tongue.

She's also pretty sure there's a good chance Barney understands what the guy's saying. She watches his face to try and tell if he's mentally translating; so far it just looks like he's watching the meter. She can see how he gets so many girls to sleep with him, though. Objectively speaking he's ridiculously attractive, like unbelievably so. And when he's not being ridiculous or disgusting, he's actually pretty great. Like tonight and how he bought her a lot of drinks and didn't leave her for the slutty redhead and how he's making sure she doesn't get kidnapped by the circus. That's a sweet thing to do. Robin really doesn't like the circus.

"What?" Barney asks when he catches her staring at him.

"What? Nothing."

"Okay," he shrugs.

"I had a good time tonight." She nudges his knee with hers. When she smiles, he grins back and runs his thumb along the skin behind her ear; it makes her shiver. His hand is cupping the base of her skull now, and when she turns to look at him their noses are a lot closer than she'd thought.

She's pretty sure she's the one who leans in first, but she's also pretty sure her nose is numb so her judgment probably shouldn't be trusted. The only thing she's sure of is that when the car stops she has his tie wrapped around her fist and a knee digging into the seat.

The cabbie coughs, not politely but a throat-clearing get-out-of-my-car cough.

"Upstairs?" she whispers.

"What?"

"Come upstairs," she says, louder this time. Barney nods, reaching around her to open the door. She digs through her purse for her keys while he pays.

He catches her when she trips up the steps, his hands on her hips to keep her from falling ass over teakettle. She mumbles a thanks and it's the last thing either of them says until they're in her apartment.

There's a pause after she locks the door, a moment when she takes a deep breath and thinks _is this really happening?_; but when she turns around he invades her personal space and she doesn't waste any more time wondering.

Instead she focuses on loosening his tie, on walking backwards and not getting stuck in her sweater. She does get stuck, a little bit, and he has to duck an errant elbow when he helps pull it over her head. But on a whole it's not awkward or anything – this is what Barney does, and even though that's not really a thought she wants to have right now, it's still true. This is what he's best at.

And he is the best at it.

She shifts, digging her heel into the back of his leg, and she can't stop thinking _this is Barney_. Part of her expects to wake up any second now and find Gael sitting in her bed with a bowl of clementines, waiting for her to open her eyes so he can feed her. She checks, just to be sure, but when she opens her eyes it's only blonde hair and smooth skin and her ceiling, slightly out of focus above her.

She digs her nails into his back and mutters a string of nonsense words. "Oh, God," Barney says into neck. He rolls off her and the onslaught of cold air gives her goose bumps.

She shuts her eyes again and tries to steady her breathing. It feels like the whole bed is spinning.

**

He's gone when she wakes up. She's too hung over to regret anything that happened, but she's confident the shame will come screaming toward her once she's functioning.

She stands in the shower longer than normal, holding her breath while the spray hits her in the face. She only turns off the water when she feels human again, and even then she has to lie back down before she has the energy to comb her hair.

It serves you right, her body is saying. She doesn't have the energy to tell it to shut up.

And besides, it's kind of right.

**

He's waiting at the bar when she walks into MacLaren's. Everyone else is already in a booth.

She squares her shoulders and walks right up to Barney, because as much as she wants to avoid him for a month, she really needs to just sack up. Otherwise he'll spend the evening making increasingly lewd references and at some point she'll crack and then. Well, she'd rather not think about what might happen next.

"Need a hand?"

"Sure," he says, signaling something to Carl. Robin sighs and Barney tenses.

"No," he says, without turning around. "Stop that."

"Stop what? I didn't do anything."

"That," he says, waving his hand at her. "Just stop."

"Okay," she says. It sounds more like a question than an agreement. "Listen, I don't think we should tell anybody about what happened the other night."

"What are you talking about? Oh, that time you jumped me in the cab?"

"I did not," she shrieks, before remembering that they're in public and also that yeah, she did kind of jump him in the cab. "Okay, maybe I did, but whatever. You cannot tell anyone."

"And if I do?"

"I might have to ask Marshall to slap you once. Or three times," she suggests.

"Well played, Scherbatsky"

"Thank you." She leans around him to grab two waiting beers and walks away rolling her eyes.

**

They still hang out sometimes, just the two of them, usually at the bar. She's kind of surprised how quickly they've slotted back into Just Friends Territory, but she guess that's what happens when two of your best friends get married and your third friend is Ted.

"Yeah, that's fascinating," Barney says, interrupting her story about the ninja burglar on Staten Island. "Let's go." He pushes his glass toward the middle of the table and stands up, waving at her to do the same.

"Barney, what? Where?"

"We're going out."

"Um, we are out."

"No, we are here, which is where we always are. This is not out." He takes the glass out of her hand and sets it on the table. "Now let's go."

She stares at him for a minute, weighing her options. Usually it's better just to humor him when he gets like this, but humoring him is usually what ends up with someone in an airport jail or Cleveland. Or in bed with Barney, but she doesn't dwell on that.

"Fine," she sighs. She knocks back the rest of her drink, grabs her purse, and lets him drag her out the door.

"Are we playing laser tag again?"

Their cabbie is doing a pretty good job of pretending they don't exist. He's not even glaring at them in the rearview mirror, just humming along with the radio and stomping on the brakes with abandon.

"It's too late for laser tag. Besides, this is infinitely more awesome than laser tag." He pointedly ignores her raised eyebrow.

"You know, Ted warned me about this once. 'Never go with Barney to a second location.' God, I should have listened to him."

"Come on, Robin, must I explain the Mosby Theroem to you again? Because Ted also thought it was a good idea to grow a mountain man beard."

"I liked that beard!"

"You also liked Male Gail so much you brought him back with you as an Argentinean souvenir. I think it's safe to say that as Vacation Robin your taste was questionable at best."

She rolls her eyes, even though he can't really see her in the dark car. "Whatever."

"Where ARE we?" she asks, climbing out of the car.

"New York City Paintball." He puts one hand on her shoulder and the other over his heart; "Where dreams really do come true."

"Are you kidding me?"

"That's right. Late night indoor paintball."

"I'm wearing high heels. And you're wearing a suit."

"Please," he scoffs, "do you really think I'm new at this?"

**

"I am not going out like this, Barney – I have paint in my eyes."

"They give you goggles for a reason, Robin."

"I was fixing my hair! And you were supposed to be covering me, not ducking the second there were shots fired."

"I did not duck, I crouched closer to the ground to get a better angle."

She rolls her eyes and points at her fluorescent orange eyebrow. "Paint. In my eye."

"Learn. To duck."

"You offering lessons?"

"Well, the Stinson School of Indoor Gymnastics _does_ have rolling admissions."

**

He raises an eyebrow at her when she holds open the door to her building.

"You're the one who wanted a drink so badly," she explains, ushering him inside.

"Yeah, a real drink, not a glass of cabernet from a bottle that cost six dollars at the Korean deli on the corner."

"Because that's what I drink. Hi, I'm Robin, have we met?"

"Ha ha," he says dryly.

The dogs clamber when the door opens and it's chaos for a minute, but Robin shuts them in her bedroom and pours drinks. She hands Barney scotch neat and takes her glass of red wine with her while she washes the paint off her face.

When she comes back, Barney's jacket is off, his tie loose, and he's watching Steven Seagal punch a hole through a watermelon.

"Surprise." She hands him a cigar. "I thought we should celebrate our victory."

"I approve, Scherbatsky."

This time he's the one who kisses her, when the wine bottle's close to empty and the cigars are stubbed out. _What are you doing?_, she thinks. She doesn't know who she's asking.

Her fingertips tingle from all the nicotine and wine and when she skates them over his shoulders, up and down his back, it feels electric. She keeps one foot on the floor the entire time; in the background Steven Seagal shoots traitorous spies.

After, Barney reties his shoes and shrugs into his jacket. She doesn't ask him to stay, just mumbles something about having to walk her dogs as she holds the door for him.

"Have a good night," he says, pressing her against the door for one last kiss.

"Night," she echoes. She watches him walk down the hall before stepping back inside.

"That was weird," she says to the dogs as she clips on their leashes. One of them sneezes.

"I know, right?"

**

"Barney took me paintballing and let me get shot in the face," she tells Lily, in a moment of panic. "And then I slept with him."

Or, that's what she starts to tell Lily, but Lily interrupts with a story about what Marshall made for dinner last night and how he complimented the boots she bought two days ago, they're so cute, did Robin want to see them?

So Robin never says anything at all. Which is fine, really, because if anyone finds out she's had sex with Barney, she's pretty sure she'll never hear the end of it. Ever.

**

"So I've been thinking – "

"I'll alert the media."

"It would appear this whatever we're doing is more than just two ships passing in the night and – "

"Did you just call me a ship?"

"Focus, Robin."

"Sorry." She rolls onto her side so she can rest her head on her hand. "Okay, so you were thinking."

"It's like this: if x equals awesome, then you and I are x squared. Times four."

"Okay," she says slowly.

"It's true. Which is why this keeps happening. I mean, only a select few women have had the privilege of repeated showings of _The Full Barney_ and normally I wouldn't even bring this up but I can't just leave one day and never come back like I usually do. Ted would ask too many questions."

"And he'd cry a lot."

"Exactly. And in an effort to protect the world from crying Ted, we need to discuss the rules of engagement."

"The what?" she asks. Isn't this the kind of conversation she should be wearing pants for?

"You don't want commitment and I don't want it either, but I think I'm right in assuming that neither of us really wants to give this up."

"So this is the part where we agree to keep doing whatever it is we're doing?"

"While agreeing to do others as well, yes."

"To save the world from crying Ted?"

"Ideally."

"Works for me."

The Treaty of Scherbatsky and Stinson is rather detailed, with sections about secrecy and appropriate MacLaren's behavior and an entire page about what happens in the event of the tears of one T. Mosby. The signing – literal signing, because of course Barney's drawn up an official, probably soon-to-be notarized document – is celebrated with cigars and alcohol and, naturally, sex.

"It's a binding agreement, Scherbatsky," he says. "Think of this as the handshake of our treaty."

She stops moving. "Could you not refer to this as a handshake?" she asks, gasping for breath, hands planted on his chest. "Now every time I have to shake someone's hand in the next week I'm going to flash to this moment."

"That's the point. Sex treaty high five!" She rolls her eyes and slaps his hand and he takes the opportunity to roll them over. He grins at her before he sloppily kisses a path up her neck, nips at her ear.

She's laughing as she thinks _this is surprisingly easy_. She can't believe they hadn't thought of this sooner.

**

She goes on a bunch of dates. So does Barney. And sometimes they go out, just the two of them. It doesn't mean anything, though – just that they're less lame than everyone else. So what if they end up having sex instead of paintballing? It's not like they're letting it affect the rest of their lives. Really, they're not.

Sure, sometimes she thinks like maybe it _seems_ like they're sitting nearer on Ted's couch, or standing too close or whatever, but they're not. She's pretty sure she's just being paranoid. And whatever, Barney never grasped the concept of personal space in the first place, so it's not like anyone would notice even if he were practically sitting on top of her on game night. So really, she has no reason to worry, right?

**

One evening he shows up at her door carrying what appear to be a surfboard and a giant canvas bag. It's not the strangest thing she's ever seen him with, but still, it's pretty high on the list.

"What the hell is that?"

"Swimsuit up, Scherbatsky," he says, carefully leaning both board and bag against the wall. "We're going windsurfing."

"Barney, no." She folds her arms across her chest and tries to look annoyed. It's not that much of a challenge. He, of course, ignores her and starts sliding her furniture out of the way so he can move the board to the middle of the room.

"No," she says again, but he's already busy undressing, carefully hanging his coat by the door. She watches him through narrowed eyes.

He pauses, leaving his tie hanging loose around his neck. "Bikini, chop chop." He claps his hands and then sets his cufflinks on her mantle.

"I am not putting on a bathing suit."

He shrugs. "Awesome, naked windsurfing then."

"This is ridiculous. I cannot believe you would even think this was a good idea," she says, herding the dogs into her bedroom. "Where did you even get this thing?"

"Please," he scoffs, "How else would I meet girls in Manasquan?"

"Did I mention you're ridiculous?" she asks, crossing the room.

"Ridiculously awesome?"

"No, just ridiculous." She kicks at the board, toeing it with her bare foot. He reaches over, snagging the belt loop on the hip of her jeans.

"You sure about that?"

"Pretty sure," she says, curling her hands around his waist, under the tails of his half unbuttoned shirt. She snakes one hand into the waistband of his pants when he kisses her, and she's pretty sure she can feel the slippery smooth polyester of his swimsuit instead of his normal cotton boxers.

"Ready?" he asks. Before she can process what's happening, he's grabbing the mast and trying to rig everything up.

Windsurfing in her living room is a lot different from windsurfing on the Atlantic. The end results are pretty similar, though.

**

Hiding it from everyone is surprisingly easy. Of course, hiding things from Ted and Lily and Marshall has never been hard – Barney's always been the suspicious one, and since he's not asking questions, no one else is, either.

She thinks Marshall realizes something's up after she and Barney conveniently get to the bar at the same time a few too many times. He gets the same look he has when he thinks Bigfoot might be responsible for a series of mysterious Oregonian deaths and he stares at Robin for a while. She smiles her most practiced fake smile – she calls it her "zombies are invading, do not panic, stay tuned for more information" anchorwoman smile – and looks away. It seems to work, because he doesn't press the issue at all.

Robin still brings it up with Barney later, while he's hanging up his pants and she's lounging on her bed.

"That's because you're not stealthy, Scherbatsky," he says.

'Yeah, 'cause you're all Mata Hari over there."

He laughs. "Please, your natural disaster smile fools no one – in the event of the apocalypse, everyone's going to ignore you and take to the streets to start pillaging."

"Shut up," she says. "I'm just saying we need to be more careful. As per section three, paragraph C: none shall reveal the nature of the relationship between the parties lest the world at large become subjected to –"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Barney interrupts, "I know what it says. I wrote it, I signed it, I had it stored in a fireproof box in my safe."

"You have a safe?"

"You don't?"

"No. I'm not Mr. Burns." He laughs again and she lightly kicks at him. He takes a step back to avoid her foot, grabs her ankle and doesn't let go. His hand is heavy, his thumb warm on her instep.

"Seriously," she says, pointing and flexing her foot, "we need to be more careful."

"Or," he holds up a finger, "we could get you a Catwoman costume. That's stealthy."

"Yeah, I like my idea better." He rolls his eyes and tugs on her ankle hard enough to send her sprawling atop the bed, which, in the end, just makes it easier for him to crawl over her.

**

Ted starts warning them about the new girl and how their relationship based on lies about an hour before he introduces her.

On the walk down to the bar, Robin bets Barney five dollars and a few other, non-monetary wagers that Ted and the new girl are broken up by the end of the night. Barney's money is riding on the ninety-minute mark.

Ted slides into the booth next to Robin all, "Online dating's cool, everybody does it," but even he knows that's crap. She calls him on it, Barney backs her up with his hot-crazy scale, and just like that their evening's off to a pretty solid start.

**

Barney moves into Robin's booth when Ted's allegedly-hot-but-not-at-all-crazy girlfriend gets there. His leg presses against hers, knee to hip, and she knows then this isn't going to end well. Probably all that talk about Vicky Mendoza and her diagonal that got him weirdly riled up, and now he's forgotten any and all treaty regulations about personal space.

"So, Robin, how did you and Barney meet?" the new girl asks, and Barney looks at her with wide-eyed innocence, all "yes, Robin, how _did_ we meet?"

The only thing Robin can think is _oh god, no_. It's all she can say, too, apparently. About five no's in, Barney looks wildly amused, but his face slowly clouds with disbelief and something akin to panic and she just cannot stop talking. It can't really get worse than this.

Oh, but it can. And it does.

When Ted's crazy new girlfriend starts talking about her handbags, Barney's hand clamps on Robin's knee like a vice. He doesn't let go until Ted and Moderately-Hot-But-Definitely-Crazy are having their pow-wow at the bar.

And then he brings up how Robin and Ted met and she starts planning all the ways she's going to kill him. Really, she is. She already has the gun and Lily will help her get rid of the body, no questions asked.

Barney wins the bet when Too-Crazy-To-Be-Hot storms out of the bar like an hour after she saunters in.

**

"Seriously, sixteen?" Barney says as they're leaving the bar. "Lily would be a better spy than you. No wonder Canada's never won any wars."

"Hey, you could have stepped in at any time. But no, you just let me ramble."

"It's just, sixteen is a little over the top, don't you think? I mean, that went well past 'Ew, Barney' and straight into protesting too much."

"I couldn't stop."

"Believe me, I noticed. God, she did not like you."

"She hated me!"

"I know," he nods. "You totally should have fought her. That would've been hot."

"Barney, she literally would have killed me."

"See? Hot."

"Shut up. Can we just get some dinner?"

"Sure," he says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "But before that we should probably shower – you know, wash all that crazy off. I don't want to risk catching it."

"You can't catch crazy," she says, rolling her eyes.

"Better safe than sorry. I refuse to explain to customs why I'm shipping a body across the border again."

**

No one says anything about Robin's anti-Barney outburst, just like no one says anything when their excuses for leaving the bar early are equally lame. Just like no one says anything when they start spending more time together in general – watching boxing or playing blacklight miniature golf or anything.

Marshall almost catches them for real, when he runs into Barney and Robin leaving the men's room at MacLaren's within minutes of each other.

"Someone threw up in the girl's room," she lies smoothly. He nods like he believes her.

What she doesn't know is that he tries to tell Lily, but every time he starts a telepathic conversation Lily apologizes for keeping her debt a secret and they both silently freak about their new apartment for a bit and his Barney-as-Robin's-secret-bar-boyfriend conspiracy falls by the wayside.

Which is probably best for everybody, because nothing ruins a relaxing night out like Ted having a conniption because his second best guy friend and his ex-girlfriend are sleeping together.

**

When she tries to reason it all out, she puts it like this:

One day she had this friend and the next day he was this friend she'd slept with. And then all of a sudden he turned into this friend she was having a lot of awesome, secret sex with.

When she says it like that, she doesn't think it sounds that strange.

What's strange is how they're so good at compartmentalizing – the sex never really bleeds into the rest of their lives. Sometimes the line between friends and whatevers blurs, but ultimately he's still Barney and she's still Robin and neither of them wants to touch commitment with a ten-foot pole. Whatever works for them is fine, you know?

She has no idea how long this is going to last, but she's going to enjoy it while she can. Some day she'll slip up and tell Lily, and then Lily will tell Marshall, and then they'll either tell Ted and he'll flip or they won't and her life will end up like an episode of _Friends_. Which is kind of fitting, because Ted loves marriage and can be just as spastic as Ross was.

If it comes down to that, she just hopes no one cries. She would not put it past Barney to put her on trial for war crimes or whatever because she violated the treaty.

God, she really hopes no one cries.


End file.
